{
"data": {
"id": 122338,
"accession_number": "1942.635",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "The Annunciation, c. 1480. Albert Bouts (Netherlandish, 1451/55\u20131549). Oil on wood; framed: 75.2 x 69 x 8.5 cm (29 5/8 x 27 3/16 x 3 3/8 in.); unframed: 50.2 x 41.5 cm (19 3/4 x 16 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of John L. Severance, 1942.635",
"current_location": "112 Northern Renaissance",
"title": "The Annunciation",
"creation_date": "c. 1480",
"creation_date_earliest": 1475,
"creation_date_latest": 1485,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Netherlands, Leuven, 15th century"
],
"technique": "oil on wood",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Medieval Art",
"collection": "MED - Medieval Art",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 75.2 x 69 x 8.5 cm (29 5/8 x 27 3/16 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 50.2 x 41.5 cm (19 3/4 x 16 5/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.752,
"height_inch": 29,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.625,
"width": 0.69,
"width_inch": 27,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.1875,
"depth": 0.085,
"depth_inch": 3,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.375
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.502,
"height_inch": 19,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.415,
"width_inch": 16,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.3125
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 335856,
"title": "Exhibition of the John L. Severance Collection",
"description": "Exhibition of the John L. Severance Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 12, 1942-March 14, 1943).",
"opening_date": "1942-11-12T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 355504,
"title": "Exhibition of the Month: Texture in Art",
"description": "Exhibition of the Month: Texture in Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 6-December 8, 1947).",
"opening_date": "1947-10-06T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311953,
"title": "Classic to Baroque: A Style Change in the Arts",
"description": "Classic to Baroque: A Style Change in the Arts. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 30-November 13, 1949).",
"opening_date": "1949-09-30T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311898,
"title": "35th Anniversary Exhibition",
"description": "35th Anniversary Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 20-September 30, 1951).",
"opening_date": "1951-06-20T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 518197,
"title": "Masterpieces of Flemish Art: Van Eyck to Bosch",
"description": "Masterpieces of Flemish Art: Van Eyck to Bosch. Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Bruges, Belgium (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 26-September 11, 1960); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (co-organizer) (October 18-December 31, 1960).",
"opening_date": "1960-06-26T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 300779,
"title": "Juxtapositions",
"description": "Juxtapositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (September 11-October 10, 1965).",
"opening_date": "1965-09-11T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 181802,
"title": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).",
"opening_date": "2006-06-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 449397,
"title": "The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours",
"description": "The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26, 2022-July 30, 2023).",
"opening_date": "2022-08-26T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Old and Modern Masters, Knoedler & Co., Gage Gallery, Cleveland, OH (1915).",
"opening_date": "1915-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Art Through the Ages, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 30 1931-November 29 1931).",
"opening_date": "1931-10-30T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "The 20th Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibition of the Great Lakes Exposition, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (June 26 193-October 12 1936).",
"opening_date": "1936-10-12T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Masterpieces of Art, New York World's Fair, New York, NY (April 30, 1939-October 27, 1940).",
"opening_date": "1939-04-30T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Masterpieces of Art from the New York and San Francisco World's Fairs, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 7-March 7, 1940).",
"opening_date": "1940-02-07T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Le Sie\u0300cle des Primitifs Flamands (Flanders in the Fifteenth Century): Exposition Organise\u0301e par l'Administration Communale de Bruges; Muse\u0301e Communal des Beaux-Arts, Muse\u0301e Groeninge, (26 June-11 September 1960); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan (October-December 1960).",
"opening_date": "1960-06-26T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Graf Sierstorpff, Driburg, Germany",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "[Sale: Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, April 19, 1887, Berlin Germany, no. 106]",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "April 19, 1887",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Eugen Schweitzer (1888\u20131981), Berlin, Germany",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "before 1912",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(M. Knoedler & Company, New York, NY)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "-1915",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "John L. Severance (1863-1936), Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1915-1942",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1942-",
"sortorder": 6
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Netherlandish artists are known for their attention to lifelike detail: notice the sliver of landscape through the window at the left of this composition.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "The scene of the Annunciation to Mary that she will give birth to Christ is depicted here as a contemporary scene that may have been familiar to any viewer at the end of the 1400s. Mary is portrayed as an ordinary but wealthy woman who is interrupted by the Archangel Gabriel as she reads a book of hours. This type of book was enormously popular in the late Middle Ages as a prayer and devotional book, particularly among the wealthy, literate nobility, and city aristocracy.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60514797"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1942.635-the-annunciation"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus. Gema\u0308lde-Galerie vom Schlosse Driburg. 1887.",
"page_number": "no. 106",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Hulin de Loo, Georges. Catalogue critique: exposition de tableaux flamands des XIVe, XVe et XVIe sie\u0300cles : Bruges 1902. Gand: Siffer, 1902.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"Cleveland Gets a Corot,\" American Art News, Vol. 13, No. 33. (June 12, 1915).",
"page_number": "p. 1",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25588625"
},
{
"citation": "Alte Pinakothek (Munich, Germany). Katalog der a\u0308lteren Pinakothek zu Mu\u0308nchen. Mu\u0308nchen: Carl Gerber, 1925.",
"page_number": "p. 17",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Baldass, Ludwig. Die altniederla\u0308ndische Malerei. Wien: A. Schroll, 1925.",
"page_number": "Vol. III, no. 44a. p. 115. pl. LI",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Alte Pinakothek (Munich, Germany). Illustrated catalogue, Old Pinakothek, Munich. Munich: Alte Pinakothek, 1928.",
"page_number": "p. 16",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of the Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition : June Twenty-Sixth to October Fourth 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: [Cleveland Museum of Art], 1936.",
"page_number": "no. 185, p. 78, pl. XLIII",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Art News Vol. 34 pt. 2 (June 13, 1936)",
"page_number": "p. 11",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Robb, David M. \"The Iconography of the Annunciation in the 14th and 15th Centuries,\" Art Bulletin Vol. XVIII (1936).",
"page_number": "p. 513n, note 91",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Buttrick, George A. Rev. \"The Life of Christ,\" Life Magazine (December 28, 1936).",
"page_number": "p. 45",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Art Digest, (July 1, 1936).",
"page_number": "p. 7",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Fortune Magazine (Dec. 1936).",
"page_number": "p. 114",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Scho\u0308ne, Wolfgang. Dieric Bouts und seine Schule. Mit 90 Bildtafeln. Berlin: Verlag fu\u0308r Kunstwissenschaft, 1938.",
"page_number": "no. 84a, pp. 116, 148-9, 191, pl. 54b",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "New York World's Fair, Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner, and Alfred M. Frankfurter. Masterpieces of Art: Exhibition at the New York World's Fair, 1939; Official Souvenir Guide and Picture Book. 1939.",
"page_number": "no. 23",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "New York World's Fair, George Henry McCall, and Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner. Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800. [New York]: [Printed by Publishers Printing Company], 1939.",
"page_number": "pp. 12-13",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, and William Mathewson Milliken. Masterpieces of Art from the New York and San Francisco World's Fairs; The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 7 Through March 7, 1940. 1940.",
"page_number": "no. 1, p. 7, pl. I (frontispiece)",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Catalogue of the John L. Severance Collection: Bequest of John L. Severance, 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1942.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. [11], Plate I, cat. no. 1; Mention: p. 21, cat. no. 1",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/SeveranceBequest/page/n25"
},
{
"citation": "Art News (Nov. 15, 1942)",
"page_number": "p. 6",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"Cleveland Installs Last Gifts of Generous John L. Severance,\" Art Digest, (December 1, 1942).",
"page_number": "p. 8",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Francis, Henry S. \"Department of Paintings.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29, no. 9 (1942).",
"page_number": "p. 132",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25141016"
},
{
"citation": "\"The Cleveland Museum's Severance Collection,\" Antiques Vol. 42 (December 1942).",
"page_number": "p. 315",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Comstock, Helen. \"The John L. Severance Collection at Cleveland.\" Connoisseur Vol. III (March 1943).",
"page_number": "p. 61",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 438",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n80"
},
{
"citation": "Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, and Johann Eckart von Borries. Meisterwerke aus baden-wu\u0308rttembergischem Privatbesitz: [Ausstellung] 9. Okt. 1958-10. Jan. 1959. [Stuttgart]: [publisher not identified], 1958.",
"page_number": "p. 17, cat. no. 19, pl. 40",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Bruges (Belgium), Groeningemuseum, and Detroit Institute of Arts. Le Sie\u0300cle des primitifs flamands: catalogue. Bruges: Edite\u0301 par la Ville de Bruges et imprime\u0301 par les Presses Saint-Augustin, 1960.",
"page_number": "no. 32, pp. 94-5",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Detroit Institute of Arts. Flanders in the Fifteenth Century: Art and Civilization. Catalogue of the Exhibition Masterpieces of Flemish Art: Van Eyck to Bosch. 1960.",
"page_number": "no. 28, pp. 135-7",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 69",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n93"
},
{
"citation": "Friedla\u0308nder, Max J. Dieric Bouts and Joos Van Gent. Leyden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1968.",
"page_number": "p. 39, 65, pl. 60, fig. 44a",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 69",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n93"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. European Paintings Before 1500. Cleveland: The Museum, 1974. .",
"page_number": "cat. no. 50",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 78",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n98"
},
{
"citation": "Alte Pinakothek (Munich, Germany). Alte Pinakothek Mu\u0308nchen: Erla\u0308uterungen zu den ausgestellten Gema\u0308lden. Mu\u0308nchen: Bayerische Staatsgema\u0308ldesammlungen, 1983.",
"page_number": "p. 88",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Bauman, Guy, and Walter A. Liedtke. Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America. Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 1992.",
"page_number": "p. 318, fig. 119",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "S\u030cebkova\u0301-Thaller, Zuzana. Su\u0308nde und Verso\u0308hnung in Jan van Eycks Hochzeitsbild. Markt Berolzheim: Hernoul-le-Fin Verlag, 1992.",
"page_number": "p. 182, pl. 90, no. 8",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, and Alan Chong. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.",
"page_number": "p. 22",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.",
"page_number": "pp. 45 & 116, no. 22",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Fliegel, Stephen N., and Stephen N. Fliegel. A Higher Contemplation: Sacred Meaning in the Christian Art of the Middle Ages. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2012.",
"page_number": "p. 52, fig 42",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 277; Reproduced: P. 256-257",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art: Picture Book No. 4 . [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1952.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 22",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAPaintings1952/page/n23/mode/2up"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.635",
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"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Bequest of John L. Severance",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Lucia Smith Nash Gallery",
"athena_id": 122338,
"creators": [
{
"id": 2535,
"description": "Albert Bouts (Netherlandish, 1451/55\u20131549)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1451",
"death_year": "1549",
"use_in_caption": true,
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"weight": 1
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],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1942-07-24T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1475,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1480",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
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"record_type": "object",
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"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:17:57.936000"
}
}